Wilmington

Wilmington is a port city in southeastern North Carolina, United States, on the Cape Fear River near the Atlantic coast. The film and television studios of the city earned it the nickname Hollywood East in the 1980s and 1990s.

A settlement grew in the 1730s on land of John Watson where the northeast and northwest branches of the Cape Fear meet, and it was called New Carthage, New Liverpool and Newton before a bill of 1739 gave it the name Wilmington, after Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington. The port shipped pine tar, pitch and turpentine from the longleaf forests of the coast, and the railroad to Weldon made it a rail town as well. Thalian Hall, a city hall with an opera house attached, opened in the 1850s and still stages plays and concerts.

Screen Gems Studios, on the north side of the city, has filmed movies and series such as Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill on its sound stages. The Port of Wilmington handles container ships and bulk cargo for the state. Pharmaceutical Product Development, a drug research company that grew in the city, built an office tower on the riverfront that the city later bought and renamed Skyline Center.

The Riverwalk follows the Cape Fear past the old brick warehouses and shops of the downtown. Airlie Gardens, a former estate on Bradley Creek, is known for its azaleas and a live oak several centuries old. The North Carolina Azalea Festival brings parades, garden tours and concerts to the city each April. Michael Jordan grew up in Wilmington and played basketball at Laney High School before he went to the University of North Carolina.